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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/23546356">Ashes of the Past</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/moonrunes/pseuds/moonrunes'>moonrunes</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Marvel (Comics), Marvel 616</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Earth 8720, Gen, M/M, alternate universe - continuation, i cannot emphasize the amount of character death in this.</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-04-08</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-04-08</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-18 07:21:41</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,787</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/23546356</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/moonrunes/pseuds/moonrunes</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>A fill-in-the-gaps from New Mutants volume 1, issue 48. Whatever happened to the New Mutants when the Sentinels came to town?<br/>Major character death. I cannot emphasize this enough -- this is not a happy fic. I also didn't really know what constituted "graphic depictions of violence" so I chose to err on the side of caution.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Roberto da Costa/Sam Guthrie, Sam Guthrie &amp; Danielle Moonstar, Sam Guthrie &amp; Xi'an Coy Manh</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>12</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Ashes of the Past</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Doug was the first.</p>
<p>Warlock was the second. </p>
<p>Or maybe they were both first, both second. At the time, it was hard to tell.</p>
<p>They’d taken to being fused nearly all the time, giving them enhanced senses beyond even Rahne’s best days. They just saw things differently, better, and it was more than enough of an edge to have over the Sentinels, especially before the mission became “evacuation.” Back when the mission was “take back the planet.”</p>
<p>They died together, and no one could tell if it was simultaneous or one after the other. It was what both of them wanted, Sam thought -- to live together, to die together. </p>
<p>There was nothing to bury, but they held a funeral anyways, looking warily over their shoulders the entire time as they stood around the empty hole in the ground, still in their uniforms. </p>
<p>Sam tried to not think about it. He shoved it to the back of his mind and clenched his jaw, folding his arms tighter than advisable and choking back tears. No tears, not now. </p>
<p>Not in the middle of war.</p>
<p>~~~</p>
<p>Xuyen was next.</p>
<p>Back in the days when the Sentinels had pilots, she’d been better -- more able to contribute to the cause, as it were. Now, though, now that their programming had carried them further beyond human than anyone was ever supposed to go, she was never around to fight them head on, always scavenging for the family.</p>
<p>Sam supposed they were family, now -- not in any official way, but in blood and sweat and broken bones and quiet sobs in the middle of the night. They’d been a family before all this, but now…</p>
<p>Now was different. Now was worse.</p>
<p>Xuyen died alone and afraid, pinned in a warehouse beyond all hope of rescue. She’d gone out in the middle of the night, looking for supplies, food for the younger kids, medicine for Jeb’s broken arm. They hadn’t even learned of her termination until the broadcast came out, the one where they informed the public of the new threats wiped out, where the Sentinels strutted their victory.</p>
<p>No funeral for poor Xuyen, not like with Doug and Warlock. Just a quiet moment in the empty warehouse they’d chosen for their temporary base.</p>
<p>Again, Sam tried not to think about it, but the memories came bubbling up, unbidden, deep in the night when he and Roberto were on guard. They escaped in the form of tears and quiet sobs, all the movie nights and little smiles and hugs that she’d given him, the two oldest siblings of the New Mutants. He tried to choke the tears back, somehow fearing that as they soaked into his shirt collar he’d lose the memories too, but they kept coming. </p>
<p>Sam never needed to say anything to Roberto -- he just <i>understood</i>, instinctively. Sam remembered hugging him tight and crying into his shoulder, though he had to stoop to do it, the cold comfort of the moon giving them light to see by and deep shadows to hide in. </p>
<p>Eventually, the tears slowed. Sam breathed slowly, burying his head in Roberto’s neck as well as he could (Roberto got a little taller, but never tall enough to rival Sam in any way that mattered), breathing in that familiar smell. </p>
<p>It didn’t really make anything better, but it helped. It was almost enough to make him feel like they’d all get out okay.</p>
<p>~~~</p>
<p>They caught Jay.</p>
<p>He’d started going by Jay after his wings came in, and as everything got worse, he’d become more moody, more withdrawn. He and the others -- Paige leading them, with Jeb, Melody, and Lizzie -- had come to New York, leaving home in hopes that the Sentinels would overlook Kentucky if they weren’t there. </p>
<p>A faint hope, perhaps. But it was all they had.</p>
<p>The Sentinels did not feel, Sam knew, but that didn’t stop him from cursing them as cruel, unfeeling bastards. What kind of machines were programed to capture children, to use them as bait? Jay, Melody, <i>and</i> Jeb -- what twisted purpose were they being kept alive for?</p>
<p>He saw red when the broadcast came out. He put together a team -- himself, Paige, Colossus, Illyana. In and out, grab them and go.</p>
<p>And the Sentinels learned.</p>
<p>Illyana teleported them in and Sam heard a guttural scream, something ripped from the bottom of his chest. He realized in retrospect that it was his, but at the time…</p>
<p>Melody looked so small in death, and Sam remembered kneeling on the ground, rocking back and forth, feeling like he was being shunted back in time to when his momma had brought home the tiniest bundle home from the hospital, like and yet not like his other siblings. He’d been so struck with wonder at how small she was back then, and now was a twisted version of the same wonder. How little she was, now that the part that made her Melody was gone, taken by the Sentinels.</p>
<p>He saw red.</p>
<p>He didn’t remember the fight afterwards.</p>
<p>Jay was the only one who made it out of the captured ones -- Jeb caught in the crossfire, Melody dead before they even arrived -- and Colossus died so that Jay could escape. Through Illyana’s portal, through Limbo, and back out into the abandoned Sentinel workshop.</p>
<p>Sam and Illyana had fought, then. Raised voices, blazing eyes, tears streaming down both of their faces as they tried to justify dead siblings. Illyana shouted that it wasn’t worth it, that she’d trade any of them for Piotr alive and well, and though Sam doubted it, it didn’t stop him from roaring back, the image of dead bodies behind his eyelids every time he blinked.</p>
<p>Ororo pulled them apart but it was too late. Illyana summoned a stepping circle and walked into Limbo without looking back, even as Kitty pleaded with her to come back, even as the others looked on, scared and helpless.</p>
<p>Sam never saw her again.</p>
<p>~~~</p>
<p>Logan and Ororo. Died saving each other -- and then when Logan came back, they drowned him. The one thing a healing factor can’t counteract is a pair of concrete boots, as it happens. </p>
<p>It took losing the Wolverine for them to reestablish the mission parameters. No longer was it “take back the planet,” it was now “survive long enough to flee.” Collect the remaining mutants, sneak under the radar, get everyone away to the Dyson Sphere.</p>
<p>Lizzie, Jay, and Paige went first, at Sam’s insistence, but they should’ve known better. Such a large group was targeted, and Kitty went down saving them, making sure that they could get off-planet. </p>
<p>Lila didn’t come back for a while after that.</p>
<p>No funerals for Kitty, either. Melody, Jeb, Piotr, Kitty -- no memorial, no memory, just the big black-and-white posters with the TERMINATED over it in big red letters. The others gave him a wide berth, likely trying to respect his space after he lost Mel and Jeb, except for Roberto. Again, instinctively, he offered his shoulder to lean on, and so Sam did.</p>
<p>~~~</p>
<p>Dani snapped when Rahne died. </p>
<p>Rahne was like a little sister to Dani, and when Dani watched her bleed out, something deep in her cracked, coiling up so tight it would never leak out as tears. She bore the scars of her fight with Death, this time -- long finger-like marks, sometimes white and sometimes the angry red of new skin, always painful -- but she had lost, and so it was for nothing. This time, there was a body -- not like the others, and so they had the first funeral in a very long time.</p>
<p>Rahne deserved the highlands of her home, Sam remembered thinking. Not the hastily scraped dirt of the city outskirts. Not the box they found in a warehouse, the closest they could come to a coffin. </p>
<p>Dani pulled away from everyone, even Sam, busying herself with Brightwind and scouting. She was away when they were ambushed, when Amara and Roberto were hit and Sam pulled them both to safety.</p>
<p>Amara was dead when they took shelter, her blood joining that of the earth that she loved so much, one last quake in memoriam as if her goddess of the world was saying goodbye to her daughter, but Roberto was still alive, though not for long. Gut wounds always took a long time.</p>
<p>“Sam,” he choked, pulling on his sleeve, and Sam scooped him up, pulled him closer.</p>
<p>“I’m here. I’m here. It’s okay -- it’s all gonna-”</p>
<p>Even now, he couldn’t bring himself to lie.</p>
<p>“Sam.” His lips were stained red with his own blood but he still smiled. “Sam, Sam, I-I never told you-”</p>
<p>“Shhh, shhh, don’t talk. It’s okay.”</p>
<p>“No, no, I need to-” Roberto struggled to sit up and the blood came faster, staining Sam’s ragged uniform. “I need -- Sam, I-”</p>
<p>“No, no, don’t talk. It’s okay. Dani’ll be here soon, and we’ll get you back to base, we’ll patch you up and get you to the Dyson Sphere-”</p>
<p>“I love you.” Roberto smiled at the shock on Sam’s face, reaching up with a bloodstained hand. “Sam…”</p>
<p>He was gone, Sam knew it, but that didn’t stop him from burying his face in Roberto’s chest and listening desperately for his heart, shaking his shoulders, doing anything he could to bring his best friend (God, the best friend he’d ever had, the team better than so many, the partnership that could’ve had it all if only, if <i>only</i> things had happened a little sooner) back, and when Dani found him, it was him still curled around Roberto’s head, hoping beyond hope that she could fight Death and win for him.</p>
<p>Death was long gone by then.</p>
<p>~~~</p>
<p>She knew before he did, the old psylink activating after years and years of disuse, and they were away before either had to say a word. </p>
<p>Sam and Dani, against the world. They really were two of a kind, Sam thought -- able to predict each other’s movements without having to say it out loud, and that had served them well as the evacuation of Earth continued. </p>
<p>He distantly remembered the other New Mutants telling them about the future they visited, though they’d been cagey on the details, but it still came as a shock, seeing the other four fresh faced and young, open and still believing in good things. </p>
<p>Roberto was even shorter than he remembered, and Sam wanted to cry.</p>
<p>He thought for a second about giving them advice, about telling Roberto to seize the opportunity, but he settled for the warning. If this future never came to pass, maybe they’d have a chance then.</p>
<p>Lila took them away and the world flashed, and Sam held his breath for a better future in the making.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>i'm so sorry. come yell with/at me on tumblr @speedyshepherd</p></blockquote></div></div>
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